


Sounds of Life

by Fleshwerks



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 09:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8484877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleshwerks/pseuds/Fleshwerks
Summary: Fucker forgot to bring water.





	

Zevran Arainai had come to believe that he possessed a true touch of death. Death does not choose between lovers and strangers, and through his hand his lovers had passed on. And what joy is there in living on with bloody hands and an empty heart? 

But his final mark defeated death and bound him up for judgement, and showed mercy where he had showed none. 

What a wild journey it had been, he thought as he walked home, serenaded by cicadas and other noises of the night, head still swimming from brandy he’d shared with a prospective financier. 

He fumbled with the lock. It was always the last key on the ring. He sighed. Soon though the door yielded and he made his way up the stairs in the kind of pitch darkness that veiled even elven eyes.

Not a sound came from the room where they had lived for the past month. He shoved the door open. Even the dim candle light flickering on a molten stub was enough to blind him for a moment, before he could see a figure in the chair, hunched over the table, unmoving, but breathing slowly and deeply. Zevran smiled. A rare sight, this, the Warden traversing the dreamlands instead of scribbling correspondence or burying himself in one of those moth-eaten tomes he loved so much. He kicked off his boots and removed his finery. The night air swelled the curtains draped over the balcony door and offered kind relief to a skin that had been cooking under heavy clothes in the suffocating heat of Antivan midsummer night. He craved a bath, but there was not enough water to fill the small washing basin and he didn’t enjoy the thought of having to double back to the well to get more. He’ll wash in the morning, he decided, and undid the braids in his hair that had tugged at his scalp all day.

Naked he walked to the sleeping Warden, and tapped him on the shoulder, but the he did not stir.

Come on now, bed time, he murmured into his ear to no avail. He blew out the candle. It was a dangerous habit of the Warden’s, to fall asleep with live fire burning in the midst of all his papers and books. 

The Warden was always easy to pick up and carry around. At first he’d thought that Leandaros’ lightness was the doing of the Circle tower. The days on the muddy roads of Ferelden had not been kind on the bodies of any of them. Even the Qunari left Ferelden less broad than he’d been when he’d arrived. But even now when food was abundant, Leandaros ate like a bird and instead nursed his ritewine, the same one responsible for the nights in the candlelight and the bloodshot, swollen eyes that told tales of waking nights.

The curtain Leandaros insisted on calling a ‘robe’ slipped from his body to the ground as Zevran carried him to bed. The Warden mumbled something, but his eyes remained closed as he gently put him down on the bed they shared. But when he lied down next to him and pressed his forehead into the back of the Warden’s neck, the elf spoke.

You stink, Leandaros mumbled, but made no effort to get Zevran to take his arm from around him.

I wouldn’t if someone had remembered to bring water, Zevran replied and closed his eyes, smiling at the way the Warden’s half-hearted noise of displeasure vibrated through him. It was lovely, this rare timbre, like the Warden had swallowed a handful of dream dust. He felt the Warden’s cold fingers clasp around his.

Nothing will wash off the stains of blood on his hands, but the Warden had looked at them and showed him his own, and slowly poured himself into his empty heart until it was filled to the brim. 

It took a while for sleep to take him, but he was content. The steady hiss of breath, a beating heart, the grinding teeth. The sounds of life, right here, in his arms. Him who denied death.


End file.
